India is the world's largest democracy and home to a great diversity of faiths, the US said on Tuesday.

While addressing reporters, US Department of State spokesperson Ned Price said, "India of course, is the world's largest democracy. It's home to a great diversity of faiths. Our annual report on international religious freedom outlines some of the concerns we've taken note of when it comes to India. And we continue to carefully monitor the religious freedom situation in all countries and that includes India."

The winter session of the Parliament will begin on Wednesday. The session will have a total of 17 working days.

The BJP-led Central government's agenda for the winter session of Parliament includes 16 new bills.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also is likely to interact with the media ahead of the first day of the Winter Session of Parliament.

Maharashtra state road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) has suspended its bus services to Karnataka in wake of an alert from the police, on Wednesday.

The State Transport Department confirmed that this has been done after a security alert from the police department that buses might be targeted and attacked inside Karnataka during the agitations related to the ongoing Maharashtra-Karnataka border dispute.

Indian billionaires Gautam Adani, Shiv Nadar, and Ashok Soota, as well as Malaysian-Indian businessman Brahmal Vasudevan and his lawyer wife Shanthi Kandiah, were named in the 16th edition of Forbes Asia's Heroes of Philanthropy list released on Tuesday.

The unranked list "highlights leading altruists in the Asia-Pacific region who demonstrated a strong personal commitment to philanthropic causes," Forbes said in a press release.

Food, snack and beverage company PepsiCo Inc is reportedly laying off its employees, signalling that cost-cutting exercises have extended beyond tech and media companies, as reported by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

A person aware of the matter told WSJ that hundreds of jobs will be eliminated. The employees at the company's headquarters in Purchase, New York and its snacks and packaged-foods business headquartered in Chicago and Plano, Texas, are reportedly being laid off.

Ritesh Agarwal, founder and group CEO of Softbank-backed Indian hotel aggregator Oyo, has sought jobs for the employees laid off by the company. Recently, the company said that it was cutting 600 jobs in its corporate and technology departments.

In a LinkedIn post, Agarwal wrote, "Many talented OYOpreneurs are having to part ways with OYO & we want to ensure they receive as much assistance and support as possible.

After three exit polls on Monday predicted a clear win for the AAP in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls, the party said that the people have voted for the good work done by it while the BJP said it will do much better than the survey predictions.

Three exit polls on Monday predicted an end to the BJP's 15-year rule at the civic body. All the exit polls gave Congress less than 10 seats.

Twitter Inc. is facing new legal fallout from mass layoffs under Elon Musk’s management, including complaints from some workers that severance payments are less than promised and from other employees that the company retaliated against them for exercising protected labor rights.

The latest legal actions follow a class-action lawsuit filed when the layoffs first began in early November which accused the company of failing to give enough notice to hundreds of employees facing termination.

Soon after entering into a deal with Warren Tea to buy its four tea estates in Assam, the C K Dhanuka-promoted Dhunseri Tea & Industries is set to buy another two tea gardens from Apeejay Tea Ltd, a part of the Apeejay Surrendra group.

In a stock exchange filing, Dhunseri said the company has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Monday with Apeejay Tea Ltd for acquisition of two tea estates located in Tinsukia district of Assam for Rs 109 crore.

Just hours before the voting in the second phase of Gujarat Assembly polls on Monday, Congress sitting MLA Kanti Kharadi from Scheduled Tribes reserved Danta seat in Banaskantha district in North Gujarat has claimed that he was assaulted by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Ladhu Parghi.

I was going to my voters. BJP candidate Ladhu Parghi along with L K Barad and his brother Vadan ji were amongst those who attacked us.

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